Trump goes on lengthy rant about Jeff Flake after the GOP senator trashed him from the Senate floor

President Donald Trump said he originally thought
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake was a Democrat after watching him on
TV.Trump was discussing Flake after the senator provided a
powerful rebuke of the president from the Senate floor on
Tuesday.Flake announced that he would not seek reelection in
2018.

President Donald Trump went on an extended rant aimed at
Republican Sen. Jeff Flake on Wednesday, saying that when he
first saw the senator on TV he assumed "he was a Democrat."

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"He was against me from before he ever knew me," Trump told reporters
assembled on the White House lawn as he was about to board Marine
One. "He wrote a book about me before I ever met him, before I
ever heard his name. His poll numbers in Arizona are so low that
he couldn't win."

The book Trump is mentioning, "Conscience of a
Conservative," was published this summer, as Flake was
providing one of his most forceful rebukes of the president.
Flake announced
Tuesday that he would not seek reelection in 2018,
subsequently blasting the president and his politics in a speech
on the Senate floor.

Trump said Wednesday that he does not "blame" Flake "for
leaving," adding that he thinks Flake "did the right thing for
himself."

"But if you know, long before he ever knew me, during the
campaign, even before the campaign, I mean, he came out with this
horrible book and I said who is this guy?" Trump said of Flake,
who has been critical of the president for much of the past two
years, dating back to the campaign.

"In fact, I remember the first time I saw him on television -
nobody really knew me in terms of politics - but the first time I
saw him on television I said 'I assume he's a Democrat? Is he a
Democrat?' They said, 'No, he's a Republican.' I said, 'That's
impossible.'"

He continued blasting Flake's "terrible" poll numbers, which show
him trailing his main GOP primary challenger.

"He's done terribly for the great people of Arizona, a state that
likes Donald Trump very much, as you, even you will admit," Trump
said, adding that he's "way down in the primary."

"So he did the smart thing for himself so he can get out somewhat
gracefully," Trump said.

But Trump believes that Flake, one of the Senate's most
conservative members, will vote to pass the tax reform package
the president is hoping to push through.

"I rise today with no small measure of regret," he said. "Regret
because of the state of our disunion. Regret because of the
disrepair and destructiveness of our politics. Regret because of
the indecency of our discourse. Regret because of the core regret
because of the coarseness of our leadership. Regret for the
compromise of our moral authority.

"And by our, I mean all of our complicity in this alarming and
dangerous state of affairs," he continued. "It is time for our
complicity and our accommodation of the unacceptable to end."

Flake also called on Americans not to regard what is happening in
the Trump administration as "normal."

"We must never adjust to the present coarseness of our national
dialogue with the tone set at the top," he said. "We must never
regard as normal the regular and casual undermining of our
democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the
daily sundering of our country. The personal attacks, the threats
against principles, freedoms and institution, the flagrant
disregard for truth and decency, the reckless provocations most
often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having
nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we
have been elected to serve. None of these appalling features of
our current politics should ever be regarded as normal."

The president initially responded to Flake's comments in Wednesday morning
tweets, which also targeted Republican Sen. Bob Corker of
Tennessee, a fellow retiring senator who has criticized Trump
extensively in recent weeks.

"The reason Flake and Corker dropped out of the Senate race is
very simple, they had zero chance of being elected. Now act so
hurt & wounded!" Trump tweeted.

"Jeff Flake, with an 18% approval rating in Arizona, said 'a lot
of my colleagues have spoken out.' Really, they just gave me a
standing O!" Trump said in a
subsequent tweet, mentioning his lunch meeting with Senate
Republicans on Tuesday.